


Incoming Wounded

by Crystalrose



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Blood, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jealous B.J., M/M, Medical Procedures, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Sexism, serious Hawkeye
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crystalrose/pseuds/Crystalrose
Summary: “What’s wrong, Charles?” Pierce murmured, his voice low.  “You can’t crack up on us now.  We need you.”“It’s… it’s him,” the balding surgeon whispered, his words clearly spoken through gritted teeth.“Him who?”
Relationships: Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce & Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 42
Kudos: 24





	1. Confrontation

“Ya! No! Jeonji!” 

Major Charles Emerson Winchester III yelped as he inadvertently caught his zipper on his finger, having emerged from the low bushes in an attempt to relieve his achingly full bladder. This was meant to be a simple, brief trip to the 8063rd, one so minor and inconsequential that he had offered to go by himself. And why shouldn’t he? After all, he’d taken the trip all the way to the front by himself with no major issues. This was a well-worn path, a direct path between the two M.A.S.H. units that had never given him cause for concern, and most certainly not this particular stretch. He was perhaps only three or four miles from the 4077th at this very moment and yet, he was apparently in enemy territory.

Charles lifted his hands in surrender now, his eyes wide as he stepped back onto the dusty road, his fly still half-undone. In front of him now were two North Korean soldiers steadily holding their weapons on him. He’d had his own sidearm, a small revolver, but he did not have the speed, accuracy, or nerve to draw the weapon at this time.

The two men spoke Korean to each other and then peered at the jeep, which had several boxes of latex gloves he’d picked up from the other M.A.S.H. unit. Where the hell had these soldiers come from? There was no sign of a vehicle or of a checkpoint. 

“Ige daya?”

Charles winced at the disappointed looks on the men’s faces as they pushed the boxes aside, finding nothing else beneath. There were no priceless cartons of penicillin, no boxes of expensive French wine on the jeep, just a couple of boxes of disposable surgical gloves.

Now their attention moved back to Charles, who was still standing in the middle of the road, in his army green fatigues and helmet, his chest rising and falling noticeably as he waited, waited for them to get bored and disappear back from wherever they’d come. This had always been the case. Maybe they would throw the glove boxes off of the back of the jeep, laugh, and then disappear into the brush. It was entirely possible that they might commandeer his vehicle, leaving him to walk all the way back to the 4077th. That would be particularly terrible.

Charles could not help but think of the black-market exchange he and Father Mulcahy had participated in so many months ago, in which they had arranged to trade Charles’s expensive wine for pentothal. He’d learned much from that experience, having a gun aimed point-blank at his chest when they would not agree to his terms. The black marketeers had not only taken all the wine but had also had him stripped of his warm winter suit, leaving him in his long johns. And yet, he and Mulcahy had returned to the scene of the crime to steal back the pentothal, leaving the men in the dust. Could one of these men possibly be from the group they’d bested?

“Modu honja, y?”

Yes, yes, that was most certainly one of the men there. Very short in stature, heavy black eyebrows, the man who had taken his winter coat, the man who had shot multiple times at their retreating pickup truck as Charles leaned out of the open door in his long johns, mocking them. 

_Shit._

There was no way in hell he would _not_ be recognized, and now he was all alone.

Charles would see now that the men were coming towards him and he took one, two, three steps back, wincing. The sun was setting behind the trees now and its rays were now directly in his eyes, blinding him. He squinted now, moving a hand to shield his eyes, but it was no use. He could no longer see the approaching men.

Charles continued to back further away from the jeep, one foot behind the other on the dirt road. The more distance he put between him and his vehicle, the more trouble he would have. Should he make a break for it and run into the brush? Should be fall to his knees and beg for his life? Perhaps he should try to speak with these men—after all, the black-marketeer surely knew rudimentary English.

“I-I am a doctor,” he stammered now. “I mean you no harm.”

“Pentotal,” he heard now, and gulped. He’d been recognized. Nodding and more low conversation between the men, and now he could see the black marketeer grinning.

“Go to the hood,” the man said now, gesturing with his gun.

“H-hood?” he blurted. Perhaps they believed that the jeep was inoperative, and expected him to fix it. That was not the case; he’d merely stopped for a moment to relieve himself. But then, if he pointed out that it in fact had _no_ issues, would they simply jump into the jeep and drive away? He’d have to walk three miles back to the 4077th in rapidly-declining daylight.

“Hood,” the man said now, striding over to the vehicle and tapping on the hood with the barrel of his pistol. “Right here.”

Charles did not know what to say and simply approached the hood, taking his place in front of it. 

“Grab the bumper.”

He peered down now at the bumper of the jeep, a piece of metal low on the front end of the vehicle, a reach that would require he bend down significantly. Did they not know how to open the hood properly?

“I don’t understand,” he countered. “Do you want me to pop the hood? Check the motor? I am not mechanically incli—”

“Grab the bumper. Both hands.”

Charles saw their smiles, saw the black marketeer’s eyes scanning him from top to bottom. What was going on here? He outweighed these little Koreans by at least seventy-five pounds and bested them by almost a foot in height. And yet, a gun was the great equalizer, and they had their own weapons drawn on him now. Being as his own sidearm was currently hanging uselessly inside its holster, they currently had all the control.

Chills running up his spine, Charles squatted down now, placing his hands on the bumper and peering up at his captors. What he’d done had clearly not satisfied them.

“No, bend at the _hips_. Get back up.”

The oddly specific requirements for his posture set off alarm bells in his mind and he stood back up, keeping his hands on the bumper of the jeep. In spite of his new posture, he was still so very tall and they were so very short. Perhaps this was some kind of strange Korean pat-down, akin to the manner in which the American police force frisked its citizens. No. He knew better than that. This was something much more… disturbing than that. 

The marketeer stepped forward now, pulling his gun from its holster with a quick movement of the hand. At the same time, he slapped the helmet off of his head, exposing his relative lack of hair. Now he was truly unarmed and at their mercy, and he cursed himself for being so unprepared.

“Now you have my gun,” he muttered, his hands remaining on the bumper. “I am unarmed, a _doctor_.”

“Neomu kiga keun,” the second man said, shaking his head. He gestured at Charles now, and the other man nodded in reply. 

“Stay,” the marketeer said now, handing his gun and Charles’s weapon to the second man. Now Charles felt him walk behind him. His trousers were tugged down sharply, crumpling on the ground over his boots. He shut his eyes and bowed his head, feeling utterly helpless in the presence of these two little men. All he’d wanted was to empty his bladder….

Now his boxer shorts were jerked downwards and he gasped, his heart racing. Should he shout for help? It was entirely possible that by shouting, he would startle the man with the gun and he’d be shot, left to die here half-dressed on the path. No, they couldn’t find him like this. 

“Please,” he murmured, turning his head now. “Don’t do this. There must be something else you could have instead. The gloves. The jeep. My gun. Take them. Please.”

“On your knees.”

“Please. Don’t do this.”

“ _Knees_.”

Charles did not move. The man with the gun trained on him cocked his weapon. He gaped over at the gun, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.

“It don’t matter if you alive or dead for this,” the black marketeer said now. He nodded to the other man and said something in Korean.

Charles yelped and jerked involuntarily at the gunshot, the ricochet of it echoing through the Korean landscape. Perhaps the shot would be heard by the camp, and the MPs could then investigate. If he could delay this for… some time, then perhaps he could be saved from having to…

Now he was being shoved forcefully from behind, and as he fell, he struck his helmetless head on the metal bumper of the jeep. His vision filled with stars and went black as he went limp, falling facedown on the road in front of the vehicle.


	2. Incoming Wounded

**CHAPTER 2**

Charles shuddered as he carefully sat down on the bench seat of the jeep, having wiped his face and hands of all traces of dirt and blood. He rolled up his sleeves now, to hide the vomit, and had slipped his coat back on and shook the road dust from it. Pain radiated from deep within, a pain that had restored him to consciousness apparently long after his assaulters had left him half-naked and prostrate in front of the jeep. No one could know about this. No one could know that he’d been raped, without having put up a fight, at the hands of a man he dwarfed in size.

Why had they chosen to harm him in such a way? They could have shot him dead, could have wounded him with a bayonet or a bullet, but instead they had chosen to inflict a hidden emasculating wound that would fester and continue to pain him as long as his memory was able to function. What about a balding 6’4” man of nearly 260 pounds made them wish to humiliate him in such a way?

Is that why they’d neglected to take his jeep, to allow him to survive? Had they intended for him to reflect on this act of revenge for the remainder of his days, rather than simply smashing his body under the jeep as they drove away? Why had he been spared?

He leaned forward, turning the ignition of the jeep as it roared to life. For several tense moments he worried that the men would be back to torture him again, now that it was clear that he’d survived the assault. The sky above was dark now, requiring that he turn on the headlights of the vehicle to see. If he ran into no other issues, he would be back at the 4077th well after everyone had gone to sleep.

The now cold wetness of his blood-soaked pants made him squirm in his seat. Surely this would leave a stain on the upholstery if he did not carefully wipe it away. He had to ensure that upon his arrival to the 4077th, that the jeep was clean, that he was freshly showered, and that he was able to hide and launder his clothing. The fact that the men had not taken his glove supply from the 8063rd meant that there would be no reason for anyone to suspect that anything had happened.

* * *

He arrived at the 4077th long after nightfall, having driven in the dark without headlights for the last half-mile so as not to attract any undue attention as to his arrival. Charles parked the jeep fifty yards outside of the compound and moved quietly past Klinger on his way to the showers. 

Charles looked in the now fogged mirror inside the shower stall. In spite of his cleaning the blood and dirt off of his face, he looked like hell. There was a large goose egg high on his forehead from when he’d struck the bumper of the jeep, the whites of his eyes were tinged with red, and his lips were chapped, cracked and swollen. His fingernails were caked with dirt and he would need to clip them down to the quick to clean out the ground-in sand. He didn’t even look down as he used a bar of soap to rinse away the blood from his legs. The trousers and boxer shorts he held under the water stream of the shower, rinsing away the majority of blood from them as well. Even after he was free of dirt and blood, the ache within him was still very much apparent and he knew there was a very real possibility of infection. And yet, he was a doctor and he could self-medicate with penicillin and streptomycin if need be. If he weren’t so intent on getting back to the Swamp without questions arising, he would have gone to post-op and prophylactically treated himself with the antibiotics. Perhaps tomorrow he could do so.

Charles balled his now sopping wet boxer shorts and trousers into a tight ball that he jammed under an armpit and he slipped his boots and undershirt back on. He’d decided that he would instead use his coat as a makeshift towel around his waist, and looked both ways in the dark compound before he jogged silently into the safety of the Swamp.

* * *

“Attention: incoming wounded,” the PA blared, a mere forty-five minutes after Charles had successfully changed into appropriate clothing under his blankets. “Midnight shift on-call!” the P.A. added. He hadn’t slept at all since arriving at the 4077th, his mind swimming with fear, shame, and confusion. Surely those men knew where he was from. Could they have followed him back here, planning to assault him again? Why had he allowed such violence without so much as a fight? And why had they allowed him to keep the jeep, the gloves, his _life_? 

“Ah, Charles,” Hawkeye said, glancing down at the now-occupied cot, Winchester lying on his side facing way from him. “You up? Didn’t hear you getting back.”

Charles kept his eyes shut, hoping it would be enough to discourage Pierce from continuing this one-sided conversation.

“Incoming wounded, buddy,” B.J. now commented, and Charles could hear the squeaking of his cot, the creaking of his footlocker’s hinges, as he presumably dressed himself in preparation for another round of surgery.

“I will pay the two of you fifty dollars if you would only let me sleep,” Charles mumbled now, turning his head to hide the goose egg. 

“Fifty each? Or twenty-five each?” Hawkeye asked in a teasing voice.

“Whatever is larger,” Charles growled, his voice gravelly. “You have my word. Now please just go away.”

“Well, there’s only one place we _can_ go, Charles,” Hawkeye added. “You realize, I’m sure, that if there are too many casualties, Colonel Potter will override this.”

“That’s quite a sum for a handful of Zs,” B.J. said, pulling on his trousers. “You feeling alright, Charles?”

“You will henceforth lose a dollar a second with this inane inquisition,” Charles muttered, putting the pillow over his head. “Go away.”

“Going, going, gone!” B.J. called out as he left the Swamp.

Hawkeye noticed a rather large puddle of water under Charles’s bed and yet he didn’t have the time to look at it and where it had come from. Even so, he left the Swamp behind B.J. as they made their way to the operating room.

* * *

Hawkeye, B.J. and Colonel Potter had been able to handle the round of casualties and finished up just before dawn, trudging tiredly back to their respective tents to catch up on the sleep they had lost. B.J. Hunnicutt moved past Charles’s cot and fell heavily onto his own bed, while Hawkeye paused a moment, recalling the puddle under Winchester’s bed. Was it still there?

He squatted down, seeing that the puddle was very much present. When he ducked down lower, he could see a large ball of what appeared to be fabric shoved far under the bed, perhaps the source of the puddle. Carefully he reached out his hand and touched the ball, feeling its dampness. Had Charles pissed the bed or something? He pulled his hand back and smelled his fingers. It didn’t smell like urine, rather like the rusty scent of iron, of _blood_. 

“Hawk, what are you doing?” B.J. muttered, having already covered himself with his blanket, propping himself up on an elbow to watch his bunkmate reaching under Winchester’s bed. “That’s not your bed.”

“Yeah, right,” Hawkeye whispered in reply, realizing he’d have to wait to address the bloody ball of fabric. “Thanks, Beej.”

And with that, Hawkeye made his way back to his own cot and lie down, his eyes tired and yet refusing to close. Charles was always so quiet, keeping to himself. What had happened to him?


	3. Bloodbath

CHAPTER 3 - Bloodbath

* * *

“Attention: incoming wounded. Casualties on the compounds. Rounds two and three now up!”

“Ugh, what, was that a whole three hours of sleep we got to enjoy?” Hawkeye groaned, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling of the Swamp. “I’m going to insist the bombings are limited to 9 to 5.”

“So much for getting any shut-eye,” B.J. added, pulling back his blankets. “And we’ll be rewarded afterwards with cold coffee in the mess tent for our troubles.”

Hawkeye stood up, slipping on his shoes.

“Yeah, well, looks like Charles is gonna be needed this time around.”

“He’ll be rested up a bit, at least. It’s like a relay race of R&R around here—I hope I get the baton next.”

B.J., finally dressed, strode over to Charles’s cot and touched the sleeping man.

“Charles, wakey wakey,” he said in a singsong voice. “Hate to do this to you but duty calls.”

Now Hawkeye approached the cot, having seen that Charles was either deeply asleep or was ignoring B.J.

“Charles, it sounds like it’s unavoidable this time. You gotta come to the O.R.”

“As a patient? No, thank you,” Charles muttered, his voice thick and slurred. 

“As a surgeon. C’mon; don’t make me pull the blanket off you.”

Suddenly, Charles sat bolt upright, slamming his head against the light fixture hanging above his bed with a yelp. It was now that Hawkeye and B.J. could see the large welt on his head, and gasped. Hawkeye could not help but ask. First the wet ball of fabric and now _this_?

“Jesus, what the hell happened to your face, Charles?”

“What are you talking about?” the Boston Brahmin muttered irritably, still half-asleep.

B.J. fetched a mirror.

“That welt on your head,” he replied, holding the mirror in front of Charles’s face. “How in the world did you get that?”

“Ah, yes,” Charles said, touching it delicately as he winced. “Yes, I do believe I hit my head.”

“Did you miss a foul ball or something?” B.J. commented. “It looks like it’s taken on a life of its own.”

“Wait—did that happen on the way to the 8063rd?” Hawkeye questioned. Now he put his hands on his hips, a little grin on his face. “You weren’t wearing your helmet, were you? What have I said about always using protection when you go out?”

Rather than address the two men again, Charles leaned down and picked up his green major’s hat from the floor. Grimacing, he pulled it down onto his head and shifted his body so that his bare feet now touched the floor.

“As much as I would like to discuss my rare instance of clumsiness with you two cretins, I would much prefer the company of anesthetized patients at the moment,” he said, standing up with excruciating slowness, a hand on his lower back. “Gentle _men_.”

* * *

“Bumpin’ Behoshaphat!” Colonel Potter exclaimed, as Charles inadvertently exposed the lump on his head before slipping on his surgical cap in the scrub room. “What knocked you in the noggin, Winchester? You’re gonna need a separate cap for that goose egg of yours or else we’re gonna be blinded in there.”

“Apparently I have a parasitic twin,” Charles muttered irritability, counting the minutes until his scrubbing would be complete. “He says not to be concerned.”

“Charles said he hit his head,” Hawkeye commented. “On what, he’ll never tell.”

“But I think it more likely that Charles went and fell,” B.J. finished, with a little round of applause from Hawkeye. “Nice little rhyme, eh, Charles?” he added. “I think you and I should develop an act, Hawk.”

“Let’s just get this over with so I can get back to sleep,” Winchester groaned, pushing past them now.

* * *

Charles’s first patient was wheeled in front of him, an American G.I. with a chest wound. He stared down at the man as he was being anesthetized, recalling his own lapse in consciousness from the day before. He considered all the things that could be done to an unconscious person. In just a few moments, he was going to take a blade and slice into this man’s body and force his ribs apart and use various instruments to tug and stitch damaged tissues back together. An entire rape had occurred during his own bout of unconsciousness. How had he endured such violence with a stubbornly checked-out brain? If he’d come to in time, he could have fought off his assaulter and stopped it. Instead of this deep internal ache, the product of such a taboo act, he would have emerged with a bullet or two lodged somewhere on his person, a much-preferred outcome.

Winchester grimaced as he sank the scalpel into the patient’s skin, blood appearing at the site. Blood had never bothered him before, but the sheer amount of his own blood that he had lost concerned him. It had been everywhere: on his trousers, the ground, and the seat of the jeep. Everything had reeked of it on his drive back. His mouth had been full of blood from his biting his lips, and he was leaking it steadily from the site of the assault. Even now, he swore he could feel the dripping of the blood as it oozed out of him, soaking through his boxers, his green trousers, then his starched white scrubs. Charles froze—what if he was currently bleeding in such a way? Everyone would know that there was something very wrong with his backside, and how would he explain it?

Perhaps he should simply make an utter mess of the blood and fluids from this surgery, splatter it all over himself so that any potential bleeding from his own body would be concealed.

He watched the blood burbling from the incision site, and would have normally called on suction at this point. And yet, he watched the bleeding continue, sinking the scalpel ever deeper in the tissues as the blood soaked the cuff of his scrubs. As long as the man’s blood pressure remained steady, he had a continuous supply of crimson camouflage.

“Suction, Doctor?” his nurse offered.

“Not quite yet,” he replied with a frown, wiping his blood-soaked sleeves on his surgical gown. 

* * *

“Geez, Charles, I thought the only bloodbaths happened out _there_!” Hawkeye commented, gesturing out into the wilds of Uijeongbu, following the staggering surgeon back to the tent. “I think I am looking at the second definition of hemophiliac! Did you forget that we have hemostats?”

“Why are you following me?” Charles said with a heavy sigh, his feet dragging along the ground. “Let me sleep.”

“I gotta talk to you… privately,” Hawkeye countered, catching up with him.

Charles rolled his eyes.

“Get this over with, Pierce; I haven’t all day. In fact, I haven’t more than a minute or two before I am again committing myself to my cot for the foreseeable future.”

He could feel Hawkeye drape his arm around his back and flinched at the unexpected touch.

“Yeah, let’s talk in the Swamp.”

* * *

Charles sat down heavily on his cot, his legs draped over the side as Pierce plopped down right next to him. 

“What in the world are you doing, Pierce?” Charles commented, stiffening and keeping his distance. Hawkeye Pierce normally did not offer much of his attention span to Charles, rather sprinkling it generously among anyone who paid him any heed. Within the Swamp in particular, B.J. and Hawkeye were nigh inseparable, whereas Charles never quite felt like he fit in. This was highly unusual, for him to be the subject of Pierce’s undivided attention. It unnerved him. 

Now Pierce reached down between his legs and lifted up the ball of clothing that had been unceremoniously shoved under Charles’s bed. As he pulled the fabric to eye level, it unfurled into a soaking wet pair of trousers, a pair of boxers shoved down inside them.

“Gimme that,” Charles hissed, grabbing the fabric. Quickly he stowed it back under the bed, a frown on his face. “How did you—”

“I couldn’t help but see the puddle they made on the floor last night,” Hawkeye replied. “What happened to you?”

“As if I would share that with you,” Charles snapped, grimacing. “Did I not tell you and Hunnicutt that I fell? I will say it again: I fell.”

Now Hawkeye lifted his hand to his face, taking a sniff of his fingers.

“Your pants smell like blood. Aside from your landing on a giant pincushion, I can’t imagine what kind of fall would produce that amount of blood.”

“I had to leave the 8063rd mid-surgery. That is in fact not my blood.”

“Want me to test it? Your blood type is pretty rare, Charles—AB negative, I believe. Do I really have to go through all of that?”

Now Charles scooted back on the cot, attempting to swing his long legs up onto the cot to lie back.

“Knock yourself out,” he muttered.

“You mean, like _you_ apparently did?” Pierce said, gesturing at the large goose egg on Winchester’s forehead. He watched the balding man lie back on his small red pillow. “Hey, don’t you go to sleep! I’m not done talking to you.”

“You are currently in my domain, as small as it is, and if I decide to sleep, I have the right to do so. See yourself out, Pierce.”

Hawkeye stood up, but the worried look on his face didn’t fade.

“What happened to you? This isn’t normal.”

“Nothing of any consequence. I fell.”

“You know, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt. Seems like you fell into it, literally.”

“Ha. Bloody water, the very first Plague,” Winchester muttered, shutting his eyes. “I suppose frogs are next.”

“I’d actually look forward to that one.”

Winchester made a face of confusion at Pierce now.

“What? Why?”

“I mean, anything’s gotta be better than what’s being served in the mess tent right now.”

“Ugh, must you remind me of food?” Charles whined, his face having somehow taken on a slightly green hue in the last thirty seconds.

“Are you telling me you aren’t even a tiny bit hungry? I’m starving.”

“I am in fact feeling a bit nauseous at the moment. Don’t let me keep you from obtaining your sustenance, Pierce. My current priorities are to change my clothing and to sleep, neither of which involve you.”

Hawkeye looked down at Charles, who was now pulling another pair of trousers out of his footlocker and impatiently scowling up at him. Perhaps he shouldn’t push the subject at this very moment. It was possible that Winchester was being surly for any number of reasons, and would be more likely to divulge more at another time.


	4. Complications

CHAPTER 4 - Complications

* * *

Several hours later, Hawkeye returned to the Swamp to find Charles still asleep, though shivering violently, his teeth chattering in his head. Not only that, but he was moaning every couple of seconds, writhing about on his cot. This had gone on long enough.

He gently touched Charles’s forehead. It was alarmingly hot and drenched in sweat.

“Charles,” Hawkeye announced, shaking the man’s shoulder roughly. “Wake up, will ya?”

He hadn’t expected Charles to lash out rather violently with his arm, accompanied by a loud unintelligible yell. Letting out a yowl of his own, Hawkeye tripped over the footlocker and fell in a heap of arms and legs against the netting wall of the Swamp.

"You got a hell of an arm on you; did you know that?" Hawkeye muttered.

Winchester sat up now, sweat beading on his forehead and his color all wrong, watching Hawkeye attempt to pull himself out of the crack that had been formed by his body falling between Charles’s footlocker and the makeshift wall.

“Are you trying to give me a damn heart attack!?” Charles exclaimed, wiping the cold sweat off of his forehead. He watched Hawkeye finally make his way to his feet, the tall dark-haired surgeon frowning as he brushed off his pants. 

Now Hawkeye looked back at him and immediately wrinkled his brow.

“I couldn’t help it. You really look awful.”

“’Kyu, Pierce,” Winchester replied with a sneer, his teeth still chattering behind his lips. “Was informing me of my apparent unattractiveness the only reason for your decision to rob me of my sleep, the very thing I need the most right now?”

“I don’t know if sleep is going to fix what’s going on with you. It’s just… you’re so damn _pale_. You’re also burning up. I think you may have a bad infection.”

“Ah, Doctor Pierce to the rescue,” Winchester muttered, grimacing. “Yes, well, you are certainly welcome to fetch me some penicillin and streptomycin if that’s what you believe. I think there is an IV strand tucked around here somewhere. I wouldn’t dream of taking up one of those precious beds in post-op.”

His answer had further confused Hawkeye, who frowned at him.

“Now, why would you admit to having an infection if all you did was fall? It’s not adding up.”

“And here, I thought you failed math,” Charles commented, rolling his eyes. “As you may have surmised, I most likely _do_ have a mild unrelated infection. Ergo, the fever.”

“I would like to examine you, Charles. This could be serious. If it’s related to your head in any way, like some kind of abscess, then you—”

“I can assure you that my current malady is unrelated to my head injury. Be a lamb and fetch the antibiotics, would you?”

“No, no—I’m not done with this. We need to get to the bottom of—”

“Ha ha,” Charles chuckled nervously at the mention of the word _bottom_ , interrupting Hawkeye. “No need. I’m certain I’ll be just fine after I’ve received some antibiotics. Won’t you—”

“I want you to stand up. It’s your _pants_ that were covered in blood, not your shirt. What, do you have an open leg wound or something?”

They were interrupted by the deafening sound of a helicopter approaching. Another announcement for incoming wounded boomed over the PA, and Charles was half-relieved, half-terrified at the impeccable timing of the interruption. And yet, would he be forced to perform surgery in such a state, mere minutes from possibly expelling the contents of his stomach?

“Just stay here, Charles,” Hawkeye suggested. “I’ll tell Colonel Potter that you’re in no shape to do this. Get some sleep, and I’ll get you those antibiotics as soon as I’m done.”

From his supine position on the cot, Winchester gave Hawkeye a pained smile.

“Thank you, Pierce. I owe you one.”

Hawkeye frowned now as he pointed sternly at Charles.

“What you owe me is an explanation.”

* * *

The buses that had arrived on the compound made Hawkeye wince. B.J. had already helped transport the two wounded from the helipad and they were currently being prepped for surgery. Potter and Pierce strode up and down the aisle of the first of three buses, prioritizing patients in their impromptu triage.

“Oh, this one’s got quite the chest wound,” Potter commented, having lifted some makeshift dressings on a Korean who was breathing erratically. “Where’s Winchester?”

“He’s sleeping in the Swamp with a raging fever, chills, and drenched in sweat,” Hawkeye replied. 

“This boy has the best chance of making it if Winchester operates. Is a shrapnel-filled lung not his specialty?”

“It _is_ , Colonel, but I’m certainly familiar enough with—”

“Hunnicutt already has your patient getting prepped, a bad head wound. I’m not a chest cutter. We’re gonna need Winchester, or this boy’s gonna die. He doesn’t have much time.”

“Yeah, well, Charles isn’t doing too hot himself. I take that back. He’s currently burning up with a fever, so in fact he _is_ doing too hot—”

“Was he not just here a couple of hours ago? Winchester can always go back to sleep when he’s done. We need everyone to do their part right now. Go get ‘im, Pierce. That’s an _order_.”

* * *

Hawkeye stood in the Swamp again, shaking Winchester awake as he braced himself for a flailing arm to lash out and strike him. And yet, this time, Charles woke up with much less drama.

“Charles, I tried to convince Colonel Potter to let you sleep, but apparently there’s a lung with your name on it.”

“Ugh. Must I endure this agony yet again?” Charles grumbled, propping his body onto his elbows. Hawkeye waited at the other side of his cot as he managed to swing his legs to the side and slowly, carefully make his way to his feet, his green t-shirt drenched in sweat. And then Hawkeye saw it—the dark stain on the back of Winchester’s otherwise clean new olive-green trousers. Hawkeye gasped at the sight of the fresh blood, his eyes widening in horror—and yet now was not the time to address its source. So _this_ was what Charles was hiding. He understood the behaviors now, the secrecy, the need to camouflage himself with blood earlier. A surge of empathy overcame him, and it was almost enough to forget about the dozens of injured soldiers being hastily triaged just outside the Swamp.

“Maybe you, uh, ought to wear this,” Hawkeye said, shrugging off his white coat, his face a mixture of horror and sympathy. He held it out to Winchester, whose eyes widened and mouth opened in shock as he understood the meaning of what Pierce was saying. His eyes locked on nothing in particular, the balding surgeon reached behind him now, tentatively touching his now wet pants. The alarm in his face steadily increasing, he moved his hand to the front now, revealing the crimson sheen of blood on his fingertips.

“I have to change,” Charles muttered quietly to himself, a strange quiet panic on his face now, bending down to wipe his fingers off on his dark bedding.

“There isn’t any time.”

“There is _always_ time.”

With that, Winchester sat down with a wince on his cot, leaning over into his footlocker to find—no more trousers. The central support of the tent was also lacking in not only pants but in his robes as well, which were currently being laundered. Winchester’s anguish increasing with each passing moment, he peered up at Pierce now, his eyes begging, his mouth twisted into a grimace of horror.

“My pants won’t fit you,” Hawkeye softly replied, shaking his head subtly. “Neither will Beej’s. Just wear the coat for now. We’ll get this sorted out.”

Now Winchester leaned forward on his cot, elbows on his knees as he threaded his fingers together.

“A white coat is _white_ ,” Winchester sighed, his eyes downcast. “I will have approximately twenty seconds to get to the scrub room before it… it…”

His voice trailed off as his eyes went abnormally wide again, his entire body trembling. The odor of Winchester’s sweat intermingled with the stench of blood, filling Pierce’s nostrils. Was this some kind of bleeding hemorrhoid? Colon cancer? Intestinal parasite? In combination with Charles’s goose egg, reddened eyes, and extreme cageyness, Hawkeye suspected something far more sinister. 

And yet, this was not the time to properly address this, and yet time was of the essence for this kind of injury, especially when accompanied by the unmistakable signs of a serious systemic infection. The sooner Charles was able to take care of this patient, the sooner his own injury could be attended to.

Hawkeye winced at the helplessness he now felt. The fact that he had seen Charles in this state would surely come back to bite him. Surely Charles’s pride would not allow him to revisit this event.

“How about this?” Hawkeye began. “I’ll stay right behind you. Would that work?”

* * *

Winchester made his way quickly across the compound in Pierce’s too-tight white coat with Hawkeye Pierce just behind him.

“Get over here, Doctor—come check out these wounds,” Margaret called out, kneeling next to a man on a stretcher. “I’m thinking he should be the next patient that goes in t—”

“Just a sec, Margaret.”

Hawkeye did not so much as slow down or divert course to address the head nurse’s concern, instead remaining a mere step and a half behind Charles. Within another several seconds, Charles had made it to the scrub room doors with his issue apparently undetected, and let out a loud sigh of relief. Now completely out of breath and nearly overcome with nausea, Charles slipped into the scrub room alone.

* * *

Once inside the thankfully empty scrub room, Charles Winchester dressed himself in two layers of white scrubs after folding a sheet several times over and fastening it into a kind of makeshift diaper that he thrust down the back of his pants. Making a face of distaste as he steeled his stomach, he pushed his way through the swinging O.R. doors, holding his scrubbed arms up in preparation to be gloved.

B.J. Hunnicutt was already in the midst of surgery, with blood halfway up his arms, and Hawkeye’s patient was prepped and ready to anesthetize. It was then that Charles’s patient was wheeled in to the O.R., the gurney halting right in front of the feverish surgeon. He looked down at the patient, who was already unconscious, most likely from the smattering of wounds to his chest, as the nurse adjusted the drapes. Apparently this was the patient with a damaged lung. 

Charles normally paid no heed to the face of his patient. But this was an unusual case. The patient was already unconscious and thus, anesthesia would only have to be provided if the patient’s breathing or heart rate changed at the moment of incision. Charles’s anesthetist sat with the mask in her lap, his scrub nurse standing by his operating table holding out a glove for him to slip his hand into. Charles’s gaze moved to the face of his patient. It was the face of the Korean black marketeer—the face of his rapist.


	5. The Exchange

CHAPTER 5 - The Exchange

* * *

Hawkeye entered the O.R. to find B.J. already closing his first patient, and yet Charles had not yet begun. It had taken Hawkeye nearly fifteen minutes to finish up triage and scrub—that would have given Winchester plenty of time to get started. Rather, Charles stood over his patient, gloved and masked and holding his scalpel several inches over the patient’s flesh, his reddened eyes locked on the face of the patient. His face was a distinct shade of pea green and was shiny with sweat, the goose egg black and blue.

“You doing okay, Charles?” Hawkeye muttered, as he strode past the silent surgeon. Charles did not reply, having taken on some kind of catatonic thousand-mile stare. Now Colonel Potter’s head shot up from his patient.

“Toot sweet, Winchester!” Potter exclaimed, seeing that Winchester hadn’t yet begun. “If you don’t take care of that man’s wound, it’ll take care of _him_!”

Now Hawkeye took his place at his operating table to find Charles still staring at the patient’s face, his arm unmoving, his scrub nurse looking up at him quizzically. 

“Get a move on, Pierce! Did you both get shots of curare before coming in today?! You can’t be out of energy already. We got busloads of boys waiting in the wing, all depending on us!”

“Don’t forget helicopter-loads,” B.J. commented matter-of-factly. “Thankfully far less capacity.”

Winchester finally came back to life, slowly sinking his scalpel into his patient’s chest. Immediately the man jerked to life, causing Charles to yell out unintelligibly and leap back against the far wall. The entire O.R. staff was now staring at him, at his patient. Unlike other instances in which this had occurred, Charles did not have a retort ready or a surly face to accompany his irritation at the unwelcome attention. He was simply terrified and unable to hide it, his eyes wide, panting heavily, his face now nearly as pale as his surgical mask and cap. As Charles gaped at the man on his table, his shoulders rising and falling animatedly, surgical mask billowing in and out like a frog’s vocal sac, his patient was quickly subdued and anesthetized. The other surgeons and nurses settled back into their own jobs.

“He’s under now, Doctor,” Winchester’s anesthetist commented. “Vitals stable.”

Charles still hadn’t moved or said a word. It was clear he was still panting, his pupils so large that it was difficult to see the color of his eyes. Hawkeye had since watched his own patient be anesthetized and yet he hadn’t yet made the first incision. Something was very wrong with Charles. How could Colonel Potter be so… insensitive? How could no one else see the very real anguish in the man’s eyes?

“Gimme a second,” Hawkeye said to his nurses, jogging over to Charles now.

“What’s wrong, Charles?” he murmured, his voice low. “You can’t crack up on us now. We need you.”

“It’s… it’s _him_ ,” he whispered, his words clearly spoken through gritted teeth.

“Him who?”

Rather than reply, Charles looked over at Pierce, his misty, wide-eyed gaze dipping briefly and then returning to Pierce, conveying the message.

“Oh God,” Hawkeye replied, his voice deadpan but his face full of horror. “You sure?”

“Unequivocally.” He looked as if he were about to throw up.

“Take my patient,” the dark-haired surgeon murmured. “I haven’t even gotten started yet. I’ll take this one.”

Rather than reply or even acknowledge Pierce’s reply, Charles simply left his operating table, striding over to Pierce’s table instead, his eyes fixed in the distance as he attempted to maintain his crumbling composure.

* * *

Hawkeye looked down at the still face of the man on whom he was now expected to operate. This was a North Korean, a man whose stature was far less imposing than that of his burly 6’4” bunkmate. Charles had made it clear that this was the man responsible for his… It was difficult to imagine. How had something like that occurred? Perhaps he’d rendered Charles unconscious, which would explain the large bump on his head. Winchester’s pride would never permit him to explain what had happened. Rather, his brief pleading gaze was probably the most information he would be gleaning about the nature of Winchester’s experience with this man.

Hawkeye was handed a fresh new scalpel and followed Charles’s initial incision to open the chest. His nurse soon applied the rib-spreader and now the gravity of the man’s injuries was revealed to him. The man’s chest cavity was peppered with shrapnel, including both lungs, one lung having collapsed already. The pleural cavity was rapidly filling with arterial blood and it was only a matter of minutes before the man’s other lung would collapse and he would be unable to breathe. 

This man had severely wounded Charles Winchester for some unknown reason, in the place where it would affect him the most—his sense of pride. There would be no way Major Ego would ever return in all his glory after having been assaulted in such an intimate, _emasculating_ manner. Charles was most certainly damaged physically, as evidenced by the blood, fever, chills, and terrible color of his skin, and yet he would also be permanently mentally damaged from this. This summa cum laude, Harvard alum Boston Brahmin, traveling to Tokyo from Massachusetts General to show off a new surgical technique, had just been enjoying a game of cribbage when he’d been unceremoniously dumped into this M.A.S.H. unit. He’d had his bumps and failures along the way, but he’d always maintained his sense of dignity. 

Now that Charles had been defiled in the worst possible way, the only way he’d known to fight this new existence was to sleep and suffer in silence, knowing full well that his internal injuries could be fatal. Hawkeye looked down at the patient now, his eyes full of hatred. This man had destroyed a life. Charles would never be the same, if he even survived this.

The nurse had suctioned away much of the blood from the pleural cavity and now a shiny piece of shrapnel was clearly evident, rivulets of blood expanding from it on all sides like the wispy legs of a spider. Pierce was handed a pair of forceps, which he deftly positioned around the shrapnel, pulling it out of the lung tissue.

Now Hawkeye looked back up at Charles, watching the surgeon's white-capped head promptly dropping back down to his own table. He was clearly traumatized by the presence of this man in the O.R. and it was unfortunate that this man would require quite the lengthy surgery to be stabilized… or _did_ he?

Several more pieces of shrapnel followed, the tinging of them as they landed in the little metal bowl filling Pierce’s ears as he could feel Charles’s eyes boring into him, into the man on the table. 

“Another patient down here,” B.J. called out at the other end of the room, and now Colonel Potter was well on his way to closing. Winchester was still dawdling, his focus even now on Hawkeye’s patient, though he tried his best to be subtle, keeping his head down on his own patient but his eyes stubbornly locked on the unconscious man across the room.

Hawkeye bent down over his patient, using a probe to search for other pieces of shrapnel in the chest cavity. There another piece of shrapnel was, embedded in the wall of the patient’s aorta. It would have to be removed. And yet, removing it without proper clamping and redirecting of blood would surely result in massive blood loss and the patient quickly going into shock. The twisted, crushed metallic blob in the aorta took on another form now, that of a trio of ugly grins jeering at Pierce, mocking him. Hawkeye gulped behind his mask, unable to take his eyes off the mangled metal. He hadn’t thought about those twisted smiles in years and yet, here they were now, embedded in a rapist’s aorta. 

Hawkeye looked back up again, and there was Charles, his bald head shining with sweat, the ugly lump on his face reminiscent of a bubble of gas gangrene. Even from this distance Hawkeye could see his haunted eyes, could feel the very real anguish that Charles was feeling right now. And that anguish was not going anywhere anytime soon. Charles would have to see this man in post-op for two weeks at the very least, would then have to watch as his assaulter was then taken to an evac hospital or possibly to a POW camp on the back of some makeshift paddy wagon, his crimes never acknowledged or charged. 

And yet it had been karma that this man should have been badly injured and sent here. And why should Hawkeye fight this man’s fate? They were already in one war; why begin another against some mysterious, punitive force?

Now Hawkeye’s nurse was looking down at an instrument she had inadvertently dropped, momentarily distracted from the surgical field. 

In a swift, deliberate movement, the dark-haired surgeon lowered his forceps onto the piece of shrapnel in the aorta, pinched, and pulled his arm back. Immediately bright red arterial blood began to spurt like a miniature geyser out of the pea-sized hole, the patient’s lifeblood quickly filling his thoracic cavity, soaking through the white drapes that covered him, and quickly collapsing his other lung.

“Doctor, his pressure’s dropping!” Pierce’s anesthetist exclaimed now, staring up at him with concern. “His pulse is thready and weakening!” Without being explicitly instructed to do so, Pierce’s scrub nurse immediately refocused, beginning to suction the blood out of the chest as Potter’s head shot up, a frown appearing on his face as he looked toward Hawkeye. And yet, rather than request a unit of whole blood or an Ambu-bag, Hawkeye thoughtfully watched the crimson fountain erupting, now soaked to his elbows in the man’s blood. The three ugly mouths made a loud _ting_ sound as Pierce lackadaisically deposited the shrapnel in the metal bowl on the surgical tray with the other pieces of metal. 

“What’s going on over there?” Potter called out. “Wasn’t that supposed to be Winchester’s patient? Why the hell did you two switch?! Winchester, get the hell over there and help with your patient!”

Rather than comply, Charles put down his scalpel and fled the room out of the far door, a gloved, bloodied hand firmly clamped over his mouth.

* * *

When Pierce arrived at the Swamp nearly four hours later, Charles was sitting nearly doubled-over on his cot in the Swamp, chin to his chest, teeth chattering like maracas as he clung to a trash pail lodged between his bent knees. B.J. had since gone to the mess tent for some food but Hawkeye had been keen to see Charles again and that time had finally come.

“You okay, Charles?”

He looked up weakly, his expression utterly pitiable.

“In fact I have been quite physically ill these past several hours; ergo, I did not return to the O.R. Did you bring the penicillin and streptomycin?”

“I think this is far more serious than that—I would guess peritonitis. May I examine you?”

“Peritonitis?” Charles said through clenched teeth. “Surely you jest.”

“You have all the signs of a systemic infection!” Pierce said, throwing his arms in the air. “If this is coming from somewhere other than where I suspect, then show me right now. I’m serious.”

Charles did not move, instead glaring up at Pierce from his cot.

“You are wasting precious time in which the antibiotics could already be working on treating my infection.” He gulped audibly. “Please.”

Pierce’s face was now insistent, his ice-blue eyes pleading with the balding surgeon.

“Would you rather go somewhere private, like the supply room?”

“For what? I suspect you realize what has happened to me now. What need is there for you to… to….”

“To see if there’s been a _perforation_ , Charles. You could very well die from a bowel perforation.”

“I am well-aware of that,” Charles replied, rolling his eyes. “Might I remind you that I am _also_ a doctor—”

“Lemme ask you this. If this had happened to a member of your family who was now exhibiting your symptoms, would you just offer them some antibiotics? Be honest.”

“No, I would not. But this is different. It’s bad enough that _you_ know.”

“Then what harm would it do for me to rule out peritonitis? As you said, I already _know_.”

“Because, Pierce, if you find that it is indeed peritonitis, I will not allow the surgery to occur. What good is my knowing, since I will be dead in a couple days’ time with or without your confirmation?”

“What, don’t you think I can fix it? Hell, I recall you and Beej writing that article for the American College of Surgeons about the descending bowel mobilization and exteriorization you guys did. That was like a foot and a half of bowel!”

“Interesting… I did not realize one can gain experience simply by _existing_ in the same room as a surgical technique,” Charles muttered. He made a dismissive gesture before settling back into his doubled-over stance on the cot. “Please, Pierce, save your argument for a case you are likely to win.”

“You know, wounded pride is not a valid cause of death.”

“More than just my _pride_ was wounded, Pierce, as you’ve surely gathered by now. I do not wish to lie in post-op among the wounded soldiers, fielding questions and receiving confused stares from the nurses.”

Pierce watched Winchester’s expression as he stared off nervously into space, biting his bottom lip. And yet, he knew it wasn’t the random U.S. soldier and M.A.S.H. nurse Charles was concerned about seeing again; that was for certain.

“Well, there’s _one_ face you won’t see in post-op.”

“What are you talking about? Who won’t I see?”

“Your patient. He was beyond saving.”

Now Charles’s head shot up, his jaw hanging loosely as he gaped at his colleague.

“What? The one you took ov—”

“That very one. He’s gone, Charles. Sprung a leak in his aorta after I removed a piece of shrapnel.” He shrugged. “I mean, how was _I_ to know that that shrapnel had penetrated all the layers of the aortic wall?”

Charles’s eyes widened.

“Pierce, you killed a—”

“Now, now, I wouldn’t go that far,” Pierce interrupted. “His right lung was already collapsed and his pleural cavity was filling with fluid faster than the Titanic. It was only a matter of time before his other lung collapsed.” Pierce shrugged again, strangely alright with this heavy information. “He was a goner either way.”

“I suppose it only fitting, then, that I am afflicted with the same fate,” Charles muttered. “I have, what, two or three days at most, if indeed it is peritonitis. Perhaps I could dictate my last will and testament to you, rather than risk vomiting all over it.”

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” Pierce said, administering a light slap to Charles’s shaking leg. “You gotta let me examine you.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Well, I gotta warn you; if you do end up kicking the bucket, there will be an autopsy ordered—I’m sure of that. Not only will Colonel Potter question the drawn-out, extremely painful death of a respected M.A.S.H. surgeon, but so will your family. At that point, you won’t be able to explain what happened. They’ll have to assume.”

Now Charles shut his eyes in defeat, bowing his head. Pierce watched his shoulders slump as all the fight left him.

“Touché.”


	6. A Major and Captain in private

**CHAPTER 6 - A MAJOR AND CAPTAIN IN PRIVATE**

* * *

Hawkeye Pierce strode behind Charles Winchester as they made their way to the supply room. He could not help but notice that Charles was slumped over in defeat as he walked, one hand shoved deep into the pocket of his white coat, the other clutching the rim of the trash pail, head down all the while. Several enlisted men and nurses were also striding across campus but Charles paid them no heed, appearing to be marching to his own execution. Pierce made a brief detour into the lab on the way to the supply room, grabbing a bottle of surgical lubricant and a box of latex gloves to best prepare for the exam. 

Once they both arrived in the supply room, Hawkeye put down the supplies he’d brought and shut the door behind them, having hung a coat hanger on the outside of the door to ensure their privacy. Just to ensure that they would not be disturbed by accident, he also placed a chair under the doorknob, his peripheral vision noticing that Winchester was fidgeting around now, his head nearly on his chest.

“There, now no one will bother us.”

“How fitting. The very room where you _examine_ the nurses.”

“What do you want me to do?” Hawkeye replied, throwing up his arms. “This is the most privacy anyone can get around here. Everywhere else on the compound has either a tarp for walls or more than one door.”

Winchester stood in place now, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he gulped. He did not make a move to disrobe, nor did he say anything more. His green color had somehow improved a little—he was now alarmingly pale instead.

“So, uh, let’s just get this over with,” Pierce commented, moving behind a large shelf of supplies to find a flat area. He moved a couple of smaller boxes out of the way, shoving some large boxes together that were collectively similar to the dimensions of an examination table. He stood by the low makeshift table now, waiting for Charles to come around the corner of the large shelving unit in between them. “Are you coming?”

He heard a sigh and soon Charles trudged over to where he was standing, his head still bowed, both of his hands now in his pockets. Now Charles shrugged the white coat off, laying it across a series of boxes nearby. The paleness of his face began to dissipate, replaced by a blush of embarrassment.

“Pierce, you have to promise me that you won’t tell Hunnicutt or anyone else about this,” he muttered lowly. “Please tell me now if you cannot honor th—”

“I swear on my life,” Hawkeye interrupted, holding up his hand. “No one will know.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe I have ever seen you this serious for this long,” Charles murmured, shoving his hands in his trousers pockets now, his blush growing. “It’s been nearly a half an hour now, and you’ve not cracked one single joke at my expense. You must really believe me to be in dire straits.”

“I do,” Pierce replied, not a hint of a smile on his face. This strangely insecure, vulnerable Charles Winchester was causing him to behave differently in turn. He hadn’t realized his bunkmate had such a soft core, in spite of his haughty, impenetrable exterior. And yet, this would probably be the last time he’d be able to directly visualize that core. “I only wish we were close enough that you would have shared what had happened to you without my forcing you to tell me. You could be well on your way to recovery now.”

“You overestimate my openness, Pierce. I in fact cannot think of one person I would willingly tell about this,” Winchester replied, “including my family.”

Now Pierce could not help but give Charles a disarming little smile.

“I guess I’m special then, eh?”

Charles could not help but be taken aback by having been the focus of Pierce’s notoriously short attention span for such an extended period of time. Was this all because of the alleged seriousness of his condition? Surely as soon as this was resolved, he would again be an afterthought in the Swamp, a musical nuisance to alternately mock and ignore.

“I would call you especially persistent. Or especially meddlesome.”

“Aww, I’m hurt. Did I not _take care_ of your patient for you?”

Charles’s face fell, his jaw going slack.

“I thought you said—”

“I’m just kidding, you big lug,” Hawkeye interrupted, attempting a little smile. “Let’s just get this over with, Charles. I made an exam table for you to lie on. See? It’s just the right height. Now, take off your pants.”

“I can only imagine how many times you’ve said that in this room,” Charles muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Ha, do you really think I _needed_ to say it? You don’t know me very well at all.”

“ _That’s_ comforting, coming from the man who will soon be examining my….”

Now Winchester was even more ill-at-ease, his voice trailing off as his gaze dropped to the floor. 

“What, do you wanna see mine first?” Pierce suggested, raising an eyebrow though his mouth remained unsmiling. “You might be surprised.” It was impossible to tell if Pierce’s suggestion was a joke or some strange come-on. Charles suspected it was the former, and rolled his eyes good-naturedly.

The balding doctor bowed his head now, eyes locking on the zipper of his trousers. Slowly he withdrew his hands from his pockets, moving them to the zipper. He’d dropped his pants with no issue in front of Hawkeye before, specifically recalling his own follow-up to a Hawkeye-mediated depantsing in the O.R. followed by an evening getting his trousers glued to a chair in the Officer’s Club. Yet this felt so very different. For one, he and Pierce were alone in the most private spot on the compound, a place reserved for romance. Not only that, but Hawkeye was dead serious, a rare mood that simultaneously elicited in Winchester equal amounts of terror and intrigue. 

Charles slowly snaked his trousers down until they pooled at his ankles, lifting his head to look at Pierce. 

“Now, it’s up to you if you want to lie down now, or after you take off your underpants,” Hawkeye explained. “Whatever makes you comfortable.”

“I assure you; nothing about this makes me comfortable,” Charles muttered. 

“I’m sorry,” Hawkeye replied, shrugging. “I’m trying my best. I guess it’s hard to convince someone to take their pants off when there’s no fun to be had, eh?”

* * *

Winchester sighed loudly and shuffled the short distance over to the exam table, which was roughly at knee level for him. Not needing to get a leg up, he merely bent at the knees to climb onto the table. Sighing again, he lie down on his side facing the wall.

Pierce gulped as he approached the makeshift exam table, watching Winchester slowly move his hands to the waistband of his boxers. With a strange virginal shyness, Charles hooked his thumbs on the waistband and carefully tugged them down bit by bit, revealing a trail of gooseflesh in its wake. Hawkeye could only watch silently as Winchester lifted his hips off of the box to tug the other side of his boxers down until eventually, the site of his injury was revealed, the stain of blood on the surrounding skin. Winchester sighed loudly, his body rising and falling as he waited for the next step.

“Okay, so I left my lubricant and gloves on the other side of this shelf here, in the supply room. I’m gonna go get them real quick, okay?”

Winchester did not reply.

“Listen, I want to make sure that this isn’t any more traumatic than it has to be,” Hawkeye continued. “Can you let me know it’s alright?”

“Traumatic?” Winchester spat, his teeth again chattering. “Do you think me some sort of delicate flower, some sort of featherless fledgling bird?” He sighed now, his shoulders rounding. “Ha. You probably do, and I don’t blame you. How else could a man of my size be bested by that… damn little pipsqueak?”

Now Pierce was stammering, unable to reply to Winchester’s admission. How indeed?

“Charles, I-I’m sure you’re not—”

“Just go get the damn supplies and get this over with,” Charles spat.

When Pierce returned, he had pulled a glove onto his hand and had applied the lubricant to his finger. He stood staring at the back of Charles’s head, at Charles’s exposed backside, and winced. It figured; the very moment Charles had finally opened up to him in a meaningful way, he had to do something so exceedingly intimate that it would forever render every moment between them permanently changed.

“Okay, so I’m going to just move your left leg back a little bit. Is that okay?”

“Fine,” came the muffled response.

Pierce shifted the leg to allow for a better angle.

“Now comes the hard part. I’m gonna put some of this K-Y around the, uh, entrance, and—”

“The _exit_ ,” Charles corrected. 

“Right, so is that okay?”

He could see Charles’s abdomen and shoulder rise and fall with another large intake of breath.

“Fine.”

Now Hawkeye stepped forward, cautiously approaching the region. It was unreal that this was happening right now, that he would soon be privy to the privates of Charles Emerson Winchester III. It was only a matter of time before he would be kicked or cursed out of the room for doing such a thing to the uppity, notoriously reserved man. And yet, if he’d allowed Charles to convince him not to follow up, Winchester would be dead in mere days. 


	7. Diagnosis

As his other hand carefully separated the flesh on either side, Hawkeye’s gloved finger touched the inflamed rim, eliciting a little jolt from Charles. Hawkeye held his breath as he carefully applied a glob of the lubricant to the area, shivers running down his own spine. If Charles only knew how odd this was for him as well, he would probably be relieved.

“Okay, so now I’m going to insert my finger a little ways in, to feel for perforations. Is that alright?”

“Must you walk me through each step of my impending violation?” Charles murmured only slightly above a whisper. 

“I’m sorry—I just figured you didn’t want any surprises.”

“Just get this over with and let me die in peace.”

Pierce carefully circumducted his finger in the space, the rim of smooth muscle tightening reflexively around his digit in a strange kind of masochistic embrace. It was then, in bending his finger, that Charles cried out, quickly muffling his voice into his own hands. The intestinal mucosa Pierce could run his finger along, save for an area in which his finger moved from the lining to nothing at all.

“So I do think there has been a perforation,” Hawkeye carefully stated, slowly withdrawing his finger from Winchester and taking off his glove. “I have to operate. You can’t seriously think I’m going to let you die.”

“How can this be?” Charles uttered mournfully, still facing the wall as he moved his hands back to the waistband of his boxers. Hawkeye could now see gooseflesh on the man’s exposed skin. “That… little Korean. I didn’t think it possible to—”

“It doesn’t take much, if it’s done forcefully enough.”

“Yes, well, I was unconscious for the entirety of it, so apparently it wasn’t so forceful.”

“So _that’s_ what happened to your head,” Pierce replied, nodding now. “You got knocked out.”

“Unintentionally, I suspect. After my helmet had been knocked off of my head, I was shoved, and I struck my head on the bumper of the jeep.” He took a deep breath after the admission, turning his head to look up at Hawkeye with worried eyes. “What if you’re wrong about this, Pierce?”

“What if I’m _right_?”

Now Charles pulled the boxers up the remainder of the way and moved haltingly into a seated position, his trousers still at his ankles as he sat lengthwise on the makeshift examination table.

“I cannot in good conscience work beside a nurse who has seen... that aspect of me,” he muttered, eyes downcast, reaching for his trousers. “It’s bad enough that _you_ have seen me in such a state. I shall lose every modicum of respect from the nurses if such information were to be made—”

“Charles, is the opinion of a nurse or two worth risking your life for?” Hawkeye said, frustration building in him. “Hell, I’ve never seen you engage even one of them outside of the O.R.. What do you care what they think, anyway?”

“I care, Pierce, because my pride and self-respect were stolen from me and it is only the pretense of them that I have left, a pretense I must maintain at all times.”

“But why? You’re only human, just like everyone else around here. Well, all except for Sophie.”

“Yes, joke away, but count yourself lucky you did not have to suffer such defilement, such complete degradation.”

“At least, not in Korea.”

Now Charles had pulled up his trousers fully and zipped up the zipper, finally restoring his sense of decorum. As he absorbed Pierce’s words, his face went slack and he peered up at him, blinking with confusion.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked. “I… don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to say that I know what you’re going through. It happened years ago. Definitely not as violent as yours, but I felt and saw every second of it.”

Now Charles’s face was full of utter sympathy.

“I’d no idea, Pierce.”

“Yeah, well, there’s a lot we don’t know about each other, eh?”

Now Charles began babbling questions that he could not finish.

“What did you—how old were—I… Wait—you’re not just saying this to try to level wi—”

“I’m not,” Pierce replied, his mouth a thin serious line. “It happened—I dunno—probably about ten years ago. Outside a club in Boston, during my residency.”

“Boston?” Charles gulped. “And what, may I ask, predicated such a—”

“I think it involved my hitting on the wrong girl. I guess I underestimated the popularity of her boyfriend and the lengths his buddies would go to impress him.”

“ _Buddies_? As in, plural?”

“Yeah, so I hadn’t thought much about that day until you told me about your patient. That piece of shrapnel lodged in his aorta had all three of their ugly maws on it.” He shook his head, deep in thought. “I’m not a violent guy but… I dunno, something came over me today. I’ve never done anything like that before. I mean, I deliberately removed that shrapnel without clamping first, knowing full well what would happen. And the worst part is that even now, I only feel a little bit bad about it. So, uh, that was _definitely_ the guy, right?”

Now Charles tentatively lowered his legs back onto the floor and stood up, his eyes locked on Pierce as the older man spoke of what he had done. In spite of what he had suffered through so many years ago, Pierce had somehow maintained his sense of humor throughout it all, his silliness, his inherently flirtatious nature. Perhaps he could get through this as well with most of his dignity intact.

“I could never forget his face,” Charles replied, shoving his hands in his pockets. “In fact, I have a history with that man beyond the… incident. Do you recall the pentothal that Father Mulcahy and I traded for my wine?”

“I remember. You came back in that pickup truck in nothing but your long underwear.”

“Yes, well, he was one of the black marketeers we stole the pentothal back from. It was most certainly an act of revenge on his part, what he did. And to think, if I hadn’t gone back—”

“Listen, nothing excuses what you went through _or_ what I went through. To hell with them all, I say.”

Charles now had a ghost of a smile on his face, and yet Pierce was still pontificating into nothingness beyond the boundaries of the supply room.

“I got through it, Charles, and you’ll get through it too. You’re stronger than you think. I mean, look at you, operating for hours on your feet on the verge of puking, a damn hole in your intestine! You’re the epitome of tenacity!”

“Make certain when you use big words, Pierce, that they are _applicable_ ,” Charles spat. “It was not tenacity on my part. What I really wanted to do was to curl up and die. I was forced into the O.R. and as such, I do not deserve credit for my—”

“Yes you do. Do you think Potter could have lugged your carcass into the O.R. if he tried?” he asked, staring angrily through the wall at some unknown entity. Clearly his mind was now onto something else, and that strange terrifying mass of undivided attention that he’d directed at Charles for this past half an hour or so was now wholly diverted elsewhere. “I’ve never been so pissed off at him in all my life as I was today. But it’s not like he would know what happened. He doesn’t stay in the Swam—”

“Pierce.”

“I mean, even Beej didn’t see it,” Pierce continued, a thousand-yard stare on his face. It seemed as if he was now merely thinking aloud, no longer cognizant of Winchester. “I guess that little phrase rings true, that it takes one to know one. I never thought what I went through would ever have a silver lining, but maybe, just maybe, this was it… I mean, I recognized the signs in the most secretive, private person to grace the 4077th, a man who camouflaged himself in _blood_ , for God’s sake!”

“Hawkeye,” Charles murmured now, and all of a sudden Pierce’s attention was again all his. Hawkeye’s ice-blue gaze, in combination with his grave expression, made Winchester gasp with shock as he waited for the response, for some kind of follow-up joke to be made on his expense. This was perhaps only the second or third time he’d called him Hawkeye.

When Hawkeye did not respond immediately, Charles was taken aback. Apparently Pierce was going to let him speak without interruption for once. He felt strangely timid now. It was not often Pierce allowed another to direct a conversation.

“Perhaps sometime we should imbibe some of my twelve-year-old scotch and bid farewell to those memories once and for all,” Charles suggested then, his voice sounding childlike and hollow. 

“Yeah, well, first we gotta fix that perforation. I think we oughta operate as soon as possible—”

“I thought I made it quite clear what my decision is.”

“To die? Surely you jest.” Hawkeye’s expression was sour and combative now as he pointed accusatorily at Charles. “I went through hell ten years ago so I could apparently see the signs in you and save you from yourself. Are you telling me I went through all that for _nothing_?” He shook his head angrily. “Don’t give me that.”

“I can appreciate your perceiving some grand design, some… heavenly conspiracy for your past suffering, and yet there is none,” Charles spat bitterly. “You are more aware than most that the universe is a cold and unfeeling place driven by the tenets of natural selection. Whereas you suffered and thrived, I suffered and—”

“Don’t you say it,” Pierce cut in, his face turning a shade of crimson with rage as held a balled fist up in front of the Boston Brahmin’s chin. “So help me, Charles, if I have to give you another damn goose egg to get you on that operating table, I will. At least _this_ time you’ll be getting repaired while you’re knocked out.”

“Have you no respect for my feelings on the matter?” Charles replied, wide-eyed with shock at the threat. “I cannot abide it, being looked down upon by the nurses with a nauseating combination of pity and irreverence. It will utterly destroy me, far greater than the isolated actions of some vengeful black marketeer.”

“ _You_ can pick the nurses then—”

“Are you not hearing me?”

“—and _I_ will dig out that very awkwardly lodged shrapnel,” Pierce added.

Now Winchester looked confused, and blinked at Hawkeye with his earnest blue eyes.

“Shrapnel?”

“Yeah. You know how it is, squatting out the in backcountry all alone. The place is just _littered_ with landmines, some big, some small. It happens. I may end up making one or two extra little incisions to the backs of your thighs—you know, for the sake of realism. You really oughta be more careful when you’re all alone out there, with no witnesses.”

“You would… lie for me?” Charles murmured now, in utter disbelief. “Falsify my medical records? You could very well end up in Leavenworth for that!”

“It’ll be the best lie I ever told,” he replied, shrugging. “I mean, you told the truth about Colonel Baldwin to save Margaret’s ass—why can’t I tell a lie to save yours?”

“And yet, you realize that in doing this, you’d be forcing your _nurses_ to lie as well, and that—”

“The stakes may be high, but the drapes will be higher yet,” Pierce replied matter-of-factly. “Don’t worry; they won’t be catching any glimpse of the Major’s privates.” He shoved his hand in his pocket, pulling out three pieces of metal and showing them to Winchester, who stared at them with wonder.

After a time, the balding doctor reached out and took the shrapnel out of Pierce’s hand, clenching in his now closed fist.

“Being as I brought this on myself, I cannot in good conscience expect you to risk your future on—”

“What did I say, Charles? This wasn’t your fault. You— _and_ your dignity—don’t deserve to die for this.”

With that, he reached out slowly and grabbed Charles’s hand, using his hands to pull Charles’s fingers back one by one, revealing the shrapnel again. Charles gulped, watching Hawkeye pick up each piece and deposit them back into his pocket.

“Three pieces of shrapnel is nothing to preserve a man’s dignity. I mean, I killed a man with a pair of forceps today.”

Charles gasped.

“There, I said it,” Pierce added, nodding gravely. “I _killed_ him. I couldn’t let him live, to haunt your nightmares, to force you to look over your shoulder all the time, to lie alongside you in post-op for weeks on end. No.”

Stunned, Charles opened and closed his mouth several times wordlessly, cocking his head and narrowing his eyes in disbelief.

“I-I… don’t know what to say,” he stammered, chills running down his spine. “You’ve risked everything for me. And yet, I’ve not warranted any such actions on your part. Why are you doing this?”

“You’re my _friend_ , Charles. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Now he could see Winchester’s blue eyes watering, locked on his own. It was too much, too intense, to be the target of this much raw emotion, and Hawkeye had to avert his eyes. He could still feel Winchester’s intense gaze and didn’t know what to say, what to do.

All of a sudden Charles threw his arms around Hawkeye, squeezing him in an all-encompassing embrace that crushed the air right out of his lungs. Charles’s feverish sweat-soaked body enclosed him much like a sauna, accompanied by the distinct sensation of each of Winchester’s large fingers digging into the thin flesh between Pierce’s ribs. To think that Major Ego was the source of this incredible bear hug was perhaps more difficult to believe than anything else that had happened these past two days.

As the embrace continued, Hawkeye in turn wrapped his arms around Charles, nestling his face into the slightly taller man’s shoulder. He could feel a rhythmic quivering now and realized that Charles was in fact sobbing quietly into his own neck, his head bowed and expression hidden from view. Was Charles crying for sorrow, relief, or joy? All were equally applicable at the moment, and his own eyes began to water, perhaps from those very same emotions. Sorrow that Charles had been damaged irrevocably. Relief that he was going to live. And joy not only because the bad guy was gone, but mostly because he and Major Winchester had somehow connected on a far deeper level than he had ever thought possible. He shut his eyes, bathed in the heady warmth of Winchester. Yeah, things would be different between them from now on, but that wasn’t necessarily such a bad thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you want to see me continue this, please let me know. Unlike on fanfiction.net, I can't tell if anyone is still reading this or enjoying this unless a comment is posted. The stats on this site are definitely a let down. I hadn't initially planned on continuing it, but with your support, I can promise you it is much easier to come up with ideas on where to go with it!


	8. Covert Operation

Charles lie unclothed under the starched white sheets, the lights of the O.R. blinding him as he was wheeled into the operating room, devoid of all the normal hustle and bustle. This was certainly a different angle for him, to see the room from this perspective—it was far too bright and wait… was that _blood_ up there on the ceiling? 

And yet the moment of terror was soon to come, the moment he would be exposed and utterly helpless. There was Hawkeye Pierce now in his cap, mask and white gown, standing beside his scrub nurse Kellye, the nurse anesthetist having already taken a seat behind the gas canisters. Ugh, why did Pierce have to pick a nurse whose name he knew, and not some temporary transfer? Winchester rolled his eyes, forcing the bile from rising in his throat.

“Table for one?” Hawkeye commented, his eyes nowhere near as serious as they had been a mere forty-five minutes ago in the supply room. 

Charles took a deep breath, peering up at Pierce as his vision went misty from his own flurry of emotions. Surgery always carried with it a load of risks, and this was no different. Surely the peritonitis was already taking hold of his body, his abdominal cavity teeming with bacteria, their ultimate goal to enter the sacred sterility of his bloodstream. What if he died mid-surgery? What if there were complications? Would Pierce keep up the lie if he were unable to speak for himself, to preserve his dignity?

“Would you roll onto your side, in that direction?”

He was glad now that Pierce spared the small talk, such as asking him if he was okay and other such mollycoddling. Surely it would raise suspicion in the nurses and do little else to comfort him.

Charles acquiesced to the request, a blush creeping over his face at the feeling of his nakedness beneath the thin sheet, in the presence of two women and one man. Was it this unnerving for the wounded GIs, or were they so overwhelmed with pain or terror that the innate awkwardness of this forced vulnerability escaped them? One last pleading stare over at Hawkeye Pierce, and there the mask was, slowly lowering onto his face. Charles breathed deeply, shutting his eyes as he said a silent prayer.

* * *

“Major Winchester, you’re awake!” Nurse Kellye commented, flashing a big smile of appreciation as she strode over to his bed in post-op. She leaned down now, touching his head with a rare tenderness, eliciting a cringe from the balding surgeon. No, no—why was there _pity_? Pierce had promised him that there would be absolutely no pity. This would not do.

“Do you need anything? You are still NPO but I can try to rustle something up for you to suck on if your mouth is dry.”

“No thank you,” Charles muttered, a frown of irritation materializing on his face. “Where is Doctor Pierce?”

“Ah, that reminds me—Colonel Potter wanted to speak to you when you came to. I’ll find Hawkeye—he only left here a little bit ago.”

Charles watched Kellye hurry away in the direction of Colonel Potter’s office. Now what was _this_ all about? His surgery was supposed to have been performed in secret, stitched together with a thread of lies, so why was he now lying here in post-op with all the wounded GIs, his body and charts accessible to anyone with the ability to read, the ability to _see_?

“Major,” a voice boomed, and Charles jerked his head to see that Colonel Potter was approaching. “I have it on good authority that you ignored your own serious wounds while taking care of our boys today. That deserves commendation.”

“Ah,” Charles murmured. “On _whose_ authority, may I ask?”

“Does it matter? I just wanted to personally apologize to you for riding you so hard earlier. As you can see, every last bed in post-op is taken and that’s _after_ they took thirty-odd men to the evac hospital. I must say, you pulled your share of the load today, in spite of the shrapnel in your skivvies.”

“Ha,” Charles uttered humorlessly. So at least Pierce had perpetuated the shrapnel explanation. That was a small comfort. As soon as Pierce entered post-op, he would insist that he be allowed to return to the Swamp. He’d already been given far too much attention and wanted things to get back to normal.

“Perhaps I should recommend you for a medal,” Potter commented, pulling Charles out of his reverie of normalcy. 

“No thank you, Colonel. I’ve had more than enough metal for a lifetime,” he remarked, to the chuckling of his commanding officer.

“Well, you let me know if you change your mind. I don’t see how they could refuse you one, for your tenacity. Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that. Ah,” he said, looking toward the post-op doors, “there’s Pierce now.”

Charles turned his head now to see Hawkeye Pierce entering the ward, and his breath caught in his throat, eyes immediately falling from Pierce’s intense gaze. Why couldn’t he look at the man? This was very strange— inexplicable, in fact. No, things were not going to be the same, not at all. 

* * *

Finally Colonel Potter had left post-op and Hawkeye Pierce was the only person standing in the room. He approached Charles’s bed now, hands in his white coat pockets, a stethoscope around his neck.

“Hey, Charles; how’re you doing?” he murmured in a low voice, squatting down beside the bed. “Feeling any better?”

Charles attempted to look at Pierce but couldn’t, his eyes behaving as if they were too heavy to hold aloft in Pierce’s intense gaze. As his eyes instead locked on the foot of the bed next to him, he pondered his new inability to swallow his own saliva. The warm liquid gathered in his mouth like a stagnant pool, tasting faintly of blood. A strange combination of anger and embarrassment flooded him now and he could feel his face heating up.

“Lemme touch your forehead, see if that fever’s come down,” Pierce commented, reaching over and laying a cool hand on Charles’s head. Winchester shut his eyes, wincing at the contact.

“Ah, well, you’re not on fire anymore, just smoldering,” Hawkeye muttered, having not heard a word from Charles yet. “Might have to take your sublingual temperature later. Anyway, I got you filling up with penicillin and streptomycin as we speak. You know, if you’re quiet enough, you can probably hear the bacteria popping in there, like independence-from-peritonitis day.”

“Ha,” Charles finally spat, the first word he’d said to Pierce since he’d talked him into having the surgery.

Pierce now moved the stethoscope earpieces into his ears and stood up slowly, sitting down on the far corner of Charles’s bed.

“Is it okay if I listen to your guts? I gotta make sure they’re starting back up—”

“You needn’t play the role of charming doctor with me, Pierce,” Charles grumbled, rolling his eyes, his voice more guttural than he would have presumed. “I am wholly immune to your particular brand of mollycoddling.”

“Is that so?” Pierce replied with a growing grin, apparently challenged by the remark. “Wanna bet? Surely there’s something I could fetch for you right now, something to make you more comfortable… What do you say?”

“I wish for nothing more than to go back to the Swamp,” Charles blurted. 

“You gotta be kidding me,” Pierce said, blinking in disbelief. “You’re lying in a real bed right now, with a real wooden frame, in a building with actual walls! Why the hell would you want to—”

“You are now the third person I’ve spoken to since waking up a mere five minutes ago. I do not want attention. I just want to be left alone in peace.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not out of the woods yet. Your bladder’s still atonic, for one, and your temperature is still elevated.”

“Is it not a bit chilly outside?” Charles said, his eyes very briefly meeting Pierce’s and then falling. “If I return to the Swamp, the ambient temperature will aid in restoring my body temperature to a balmy 98.6 degrees.”

Pierce now held the bell of the stethoscope and leaned down over Charles, placing the diaphragm on Charles’s abdomen.

“Ah, your guts are gurgling quite nicely. Just what I wanted to hear,” he said with a smile, removing the stethoscope from his ears. “Don’t worry—these things take time.”

There was an awkward moment of silence that passed between them, Charles attempting to make eye contact with the man sitting on his bed, the man who had risked so much to help him. In spite of a nearly overwhelming urge to thank him with every breath of air left in his lungs, Winchester’s irritation at being in post-op overruled this impulse.

“Why am I here?” Charles whispered now. “I had presumed this to be completely confidential. What of my vitals, my dressings? Anyone could come in here and read my charts, not to mention gawking at me while I sleep!”

“I authorized myself for changing your dressings and taking your vitals. Here—you wanna look at what’s on your charts?” Pierce said, leaning forward and taking the clipboard off of the end of the bed and handing it to Charles, who began to read over it. “I mean, why shouldn’t you have the best care anywhere like the rest of these men—clean linens, a comfortable bed, our best attempt at a temperature-controlled post-op?”

Charles frowned now, leaning towards Pierce. There was nothing of any consequence on his charts, beside the time and dose of penicillin and streptomycin as well as the values for his vitals. He handed the clipboard back to Pierce, giving him a little bow of the head. Somehow Pierce had buried the other relevant medical information in a place no one else could find it.

Another silence between them. Now Pierce placed the stethoscope back in his ears and shifted towards the head of the bed, placing the diaphragm over Charles’s heart. Charles could only blink and look away, unable to stomach Pierce’s intense gaze as he listened to his internal sounds, sounds that Charles himself was not privy to without a stethoscope of his own. What if Pierce could hear his thoughts right now, the strange combination of intense embarrassment, crippling gratitude, and growing aggravation that echoed inside his brain? And what of that other unnamed emotion that prevented Charles from being able to look at Pierce—what _was_ that? He himself could not be certain.

“Did the nurses see anything?” Charles quietly ventured, his face stricken.

“Well, Nurse Kellye did mutter something about everything being perfectly proportionate,” Pierce said with a naughty grin. “Anyway, she invited you to drop by the nurse’s tent sometime once you’re approved for those kinds of activities.”

“Ha. Seriously, Pierce, how did you explain away the, uh…”

“No one saw anything but me, Charles. There was nothing to explain. Trust me on this.”

“That’s rich, coming from someone who is in fact lying through his—”

“Ah ah,” Pierce interrupted in a chiding tone, to the sound of the door opening. “Hey, Beej!” he said, waving at the mustached man at the other end of the ward. “Look who’s awake!”

As Hunnicutt approached Charles’s bed, Pierce stood up, placing the clipboard back at the end of the bed.

“Charles! How are you, buddy?” Hunnicutt asked Charles, who was now leaning back on his elbows. “I must say, I’m impressed. Peritonitis is no laughing matter.”

Winchester stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Must the entire compound know that he had a perforated colon, regardless of the etiology?

“It’s not like you to keep quiet when something’s ailing you,” B.J. added. “Why didn’t you tell us? It’s not every day you have surgeons for roommates.”

Winchester took a deep breath, his eyes moving to Pierce and then falling again, no clever retort coming to him. Had Pierce removed his wit as well?


	9. No Place Like Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have gathered from my posting of chapter 8 earlier, I have decided to continue with this story! When all of your wonderful feedback and encouragement came pouring in after the posting of what I'd presumed would be the final chapter, the ideas began pouring out of me once more and I have been writing like crazy these past couple of days, preparing more chapters for your enjoyment! Thank you all again for your encouragement!

“Wake up, Charles,” a voice said, penetrating the bleariness of his exhausted mind. Charles blinked several times, squinting in the bright lights of post-op, Hawkeye Pierce materializing into view. It was the following morning already. Apparently exhaustion had overcome him shortly after his exchange with his Swampmates.

“Wh-what is it?” he muttered, his eyes so squinty that he could not see a thing.

“I’d like to get your sublingual temperature. You know, to make sure the antibiotics are working. Also, you were talking in your sleep.”

Charles blanched. This was not good at all. There was no way he could control himself while he was unconscious. It was horrifying enough to know that he was capable of snoring, and now _this_?!

“Wh-what was I saying?” Charles murmured, face frozen. Hawkeye was startled at Charles’s lack of a surly reply berating him for explaining the medical reasoning behind things. The man on the bed was a tentative version of himself, Major Winchester wrapped in a lambskin cloak.

“I couldn’t really understand it. You didn’t sound too happy.”

“I cannot remain here in post-op,” Charles muttered. “What if I… say too much?”

Charles peered up at Hawkeye with that strange inexplicable bouncing up and down of his eyes, Pierce placing the thermometer under his tongue, his having pulled himself to a seated position against the plywood wall. Even now, it was impossible to maintain any meaningful eye contact. Was this because of that impromptu hug he’d given Pierce yesterday? He hadn’t even asked before he’d done such a thing. Pierce had not only looked upon his most private regions, but worse, he’d seen him in a rare moment of raw emotion, of complete vulnerability.

“I could always move you over by Private Scraggs; he screams in his sleep,” Hawkeye suggested, shrugging good-naturedly. “Your whimpering would be drowned out completely.”

“ _Whmprng_?” Charles mumbled in reply, the thermometer restricting the movement of his mouth. No, this was not good at all. A Winchester never whimpered.

“Listen, I think it’s very possible you’ll be back on your feet by this evening,” Hawkeye remarked as Charles waited for the mercury to rise. “But I’d like to keep you in post-op for another day or two to ensure that the infection is gone. I know you want to go back to the Swamp, but you and I know damn well that it’s less than clean in there.”

Pierce had been smart in telling him this while he was effectively muted, his mouth holding the glass thermometer. Yet rather than glare at Pierce for making such a call when he was unable to argue against it, he slumped down in the bed staring at the opposite wall, the air expelling through his nostrils in a loud burst.

“Ninety-nine,” Hawkeye said, smiling at the thermometer now. “Back to normal. Do you need a urinal? Want something to eat? Unfortunately, you’ll have to be on a liquid diet for a couple of days and—”

“I am well-aware of the protocol for my… condition,” Charles blurted, a glimpse of himself making an appearance. He forced his eyes to leave the opposite wall, raising them with great difficulty to Pierce’s face and locking them on Hawkeye’s ice-blue eyes. “Please let me go back to the Swamp, Pierce. For the sake of my sanity, if nothing else.”

“Yeah, here’s the thing; we don’t have easy access to fresh dressings or bedpans or—”

“Then I shall bring them with me.”

“How’s that gonna look? My surgical patient being forced to carry his own medical supplies to a dirty hovel in the middle of a cul de sac.”

“Dirty hovel?” Charles said, not quite able to crack a smile. “I’d always supposed I was the only one who saw it that way.”

Now Pierce’s own little grin had faded and he shook his head at Charles like some disappointed parent, his hands on his hips.

“Okay, let’s get serious here, alright? Until you’re fully healed, you are my responsibility, and I am going to do my damnedest to make sure you have the best medical care, none of which involves lying on a cot in a tent made of netting like some boy scout on a camping trip, the mosquitos eating you alive while you go through countless freeze-thaw cycles. I know it’s most likely because you want to listen to music during your recovery—I get it, I do—but as soon as some of these other beds are freed up, I’ll be glad to bring your record playe—”

“That’s not why,” Charles interrupted, looking pained. “I was talking in my _sleep_ , Pierce.”

“So? Beej does it too. I mean, you have everything you want here—better temperature regulation, a comfortable bed, not to mention a—”

“What I want, more than anything else, is _privacy_. If I’d have known I would be stuck here in Grand Central Station broadcasting the events of the incident while unconscious, this humiliating malady hidden under a nearly transparent sheet, I would have sooner chosen death by peritonitis.”

Pierce blinked at him, clearly angry.

“You can’t be serious.”

Charles felt his eyes misting and hated himself. When he spoke, his voice was as soft and weak as he felt. He attempted to cross his arms, to appear more adamant.

“I am. _Dead_ serious.”

“Fine, Charles,” Hawkeye said, throwing up his hands in frustration. “If that’s what you want, then we’ll get you set up over there.”

* * *

He’d have some scrubbing to do, he could see now as he pulled back the sheets to lie down. The mattress of Winchester’s cot was stained nearly black with the blood that had oozed from him and yet it was too late to turn back now. Miserably, Charles placed a steadying hand on his lumpy soiled mattress and painstakingly lowered his body onto the cot.

Pierce had carried in his supplies, having since laid his teetering stack of a bed pan, portable urinal and clean sheets and dressings on his own bed as he stood close by while Charles returned to his own bed. Pierce felt so damn aggravated with the man. Had they not held each other for the better part of a minute in a cathartic sob fest in the supply room only yesterday? And yet now Charles had shut down again and he had now been placed in a position of authority, to force Charles to heal. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Charles was supposed to be more open now, free to express himself to his new confidant, their friendship finally at level two, and yet he was finding him to be acting quite the opposite.

“Do you want me to move your record player closer?” Hawkeye asked, looming above Charles as he lie back on his cot. “I can scoot your desk closer to you, or I could put the record player on your chair—”

“Why are you doing all this?” Charles blurted, staring at him wide-eyed, a strange desperation in his eyes. 

“Did I not say it yesterday?” Pierce answered. “Because you’re my—”

“Nonsense, Pierce!” Winchester shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “Utter, complete drivel! It beggars belief that you would take this… _sacrifice_ even further, were it not for some yet undivulged reason. What, do you need a loan, some money to pay off some persistent bookie? I would be glad to loan you whatever you wish, interest-free. A letter of recommendation for your future career? You need only ask. A place to stay if you visit Boston? Done.”

Hawkeye could only gape at him in disbelief.

“I’m not sure where exactly this is coming from—”

“All I am asking is that you stop catering to my every whim and let me rest in peace!” Charles interrupted, lying back and shutting his eyes, a deep scowl on his face.

“Is that really what you want?”

“Yes, it is, Pierce. You have done more than enough, ‘kyu.”

Charles did not open his eyes again and Pierce took the opportunity to bring the bedpan and the urinal over to Winchester’s chair. He left the Swamp without another word, taking one last glance at Winchester, who lie flat on his back, his eyes closed and mouth a thin line. What in the world was going on with him?


	10. Pillow Talk

“I am a doctor!” the voice cried out in a crisp, unnaturally high voice, just as Hawkeye Pierce entered the Swamp later that evening. B.J. Hunnicutt was probably a mere minute or two behind him, finishing the last of his beer at the O club, necessitating an immediate halt to Charles’s nocturnal broadcast.

“Charles,” Hawkeye said, gently touching his bunkmate on the shoulder, the man squirming around in bed, a look of anguish on his face. “You’re talking in your sleep again.”

Winchester lashed out with an IV-laden arm, narrowly missing Pierce as he dodged the swinging appendage with a quick leap to the side. Clearly the man was still on edge, his body in a constant state of impending danger.

“Wake up, will ya?” Hawkeye insisted, looking back towards the door of the Swamp. “You’re having a nightmare.”

Now he could see that Charles was finally stirring from his sleep, smacking his lips together, the tape holding his IV line to his arm appearing to have become dislodged. 

“Ugh… I gotta fix your IV, Charles.”

“W-what?” Charles murmured now, squinting as Hawkeye unexpectedly turned on his overhead light.

“You were talking in your sleep again. And you flailed around and almost removed your IV line.”

Charles sat up abruptly, striking his head once again on the light fixture but ignoring the subsequent pain as he squinted up at Pierce.

“What was I saying?”

“Something about being a doctor,” Pierce said with a shrug. “That doesn’t sound too bad. I mean, it’s the truth, isn’t it? Maybe you’re already moving on.”

“Oh God,” Charles muttered now, shaking his head with worry. “You don’t understand, Pierce. That is something I said… that day. No… no, this cannot do at all.”

Winchester peered down at his tethered arm and then reached down to grab a handkerchief from his footlocker. With a wince, he yanked out the IV and held the questionably clean handkerchief in the crook of his elbow.

“What the hell did you do that for?” Pierce yelled now, gaping down at the pajama-clad man on the cot. “Geez, you may as well write ‘welcome germs’ on that dirty scrap of fabric!”

“I’ll have you know that this handkerchief is silk, which is naturally antimicrobial.”

“Yeah, tell that to the staph pouring into your bloodstream right now.”

Charles stood up with a scoff, using his now IV-free arm to lean on his desk for support.

“I am going elsewhere,” he said, swooping his arm down to collect his pillow and blanket. “This cannot continue.”

“ _What_ can’t continue?”

“Against my better judgement, I allowed you to examine and repair my injury, rather than to accept my fate. And now, my brain is determined to tattle on me in my _sleep_ , no less!” 

Charles shoved past Pierce just as Hunnicutt entered the Swamp, a pillow and blanket in the crook of his arm, his other hand holding pressure on his IV site. He’d left behind his IV stand, the cannula now dragging on the ground by his empty cot. B.J. looked confused at the sudden exodus. It hadn’t been so long ago that a snoring Charles refused to sleep elsewhere and now he was _preemptively_ leaving?!

“Hey, Hawk, what was that all about?” he asked, seeing Hawkeye standing in front of Charles’s cot with a frown on his face. It wasn’t often that Hawkeye frowned, least of all in the Swamp.

“Charles is having a rough time getting to sleep,” Pierce replied. “I suggested he stay in post-op.”

“You mean, he’s actually listening to you? Never thought I’d see the day.” The mustached doctor peered at the IV stand, at the cannula on the ground. “Huh. Well, that whole IV setup is going to have to be redone.”

“I dunno,” Hawkeye said with a shrug. “Maybe he just wants to be alone for a bit first. I don’t blame him, really.”

“What happened to him, anyway? One minute he’s got a bump on his head, the next he looks like death warmed over, and then I’m hearing that he was the main participant in a real covert operation.”

“Shrapnel,” Hawkeye said, beginning to pace frantically in the Swamp.

“Shrapnel _how_?” B.J. replied, crossing his arms. “He’s quite the surgeon but I wouldn’t guess him to be much of a soldier.”

“I understand it to have happened while nature was calling.”

“And that giant goose egg?”

“Would you not fall over from a squatting position if shrapnel jumped up and bit you on the ass?”

“Yeah, but that was quite the lump. If he’d been wearing a helmet and squatting, a simple fall wouldn’t have caused that.”

“Well, he _is_ pretty tall and doesn’t have much in the way of a cushion of hair on top.”

“Was he in a rock quarry or something? Hitting the ground, even from his height, wouldn’t—”

“Geez, Beej, I wasn’t there,” Hawkeye interrupted. “I mean, I feel like I’m on trial here.”

“Well, it’s just weird.” B.J. commented, walking over to his cot. “I mean, Charles comes back late from the 8063rd, bribes us with quite a lot of money just so that he can sleep, and then runs out of the O.R. like he’s seen a ghost. The next time I see him, he’s in post-op with an IV in his arm and you’re his personal physician.”

“What can I say? Winchester’s a stickler for privacy.”

“Something’s not adding up here,” B.J. muttered, shaking his head. “Why did he leave just now? He’s _not_ going to post-op, is he?”

“Can you just leave it well enough alone?” Pierce grumbled. “I’m still not caught up on the sleep I lost yesterday. Winchester’s fine, _I’m_ fine; I don’t see what the problem is.”

* * *

“Captain Pierce,” an insistent voice murmured into his ear, a pair of hairy hands on his shoulders. “Captain Pierce, you gotta come quick.”

Hawkeye awoke from his slumber to find Klinger looming above him, and almost yelled out in surprise.

“Captain Pierce, it’s Major Winchester,” Klinger explained. “He’s in the supply room and he’s yelling and knocking things around.”

Pierce squinted up in confusion at the Lebanese company clerk, scratching his head.

“Ugh, what time is it?”

“It’s, uh, 0300 hours. I didn’t want to wake you, but—”

“Three in the _morning_?” Pierce interrupted, his eyes still half-closed. “Can’t you just tell him to cut it out?”

“The thing is, I can’t get in the door and he doesn’t seem to be able to hear me. He did yell out your name, so I came to you first. I don’t know what’s going on, but I didn’t want to get Colonel Potter involved.”

Rolling his eyes, Hawkeye stood up abruptly and snatched his maroon bathrobe from the central pole of the Swamp. Already he was beginning to regret his gestures of goodwill. Shaking his head, he slid on a pair of slippers and left Klinger behind without a word, striding purposefully across the darkened, frost-covered compound.

In the meantime, B.J. Hunnicutt had woken up as well but had said nothing, lying on his cot in the darkness with a confused look on his face. What the hell was going on with Winchester?

* * *

Hawkeye arrived in front of the supply room door, the clothes hanger on its nail. So Charles had had enough sense to maintain privacy in that way, and apparently also by barricading the door from the inside. He could hear Klinger several yards behind him now, having just reached his office door.

There was the sound that Klinger was referring to, a low moan that crescendoed into an all-out yell. Was Winchester acting out in his sleep again? Otherwise, it didn’t make sense that he hadn’t stopped after Klinger had tried to get his attention.

“Charles, lemme in,” Hawkeye called out, pounding heavily on the door, attempting to turn the knob to no avail. “It’s Hawkeye. You’re gonna wake up half the compound!”

He followed his little speech with a swift, hard kick to the door, a kick that hurt his slipper-clad toes so badly he yowled, and yet his action had had its intended effect. The moaning coming from inside abruptly stopped.

“Charles,” Hawkeye said now, his voice softer. “You’re yelling in your sleep again and Klinger can hear you. Can you let me in?”

He could hear now the sound of something heavy being pushed across the floor and finally the door was opened, revealing an exhausted-looking Major Winchester, his sandy hair all askew and light blue pajamas soaked with sweat. Yet rather than talk to him in this open space, Hawkeye pushed past Charles, shutting the door behind them, effectively barring Klinger from entering. He strode all the way into the back of the room near the makeshift exam table, which Charles had made into a kind of bed.

“Charles, you’re making a lot of commotion,” he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. “This room shares a wall with Klinger’s office, and he could hear you yelling and knocking things around.”

Now Winchester looked horrified, his cheeks reddening with shame. 

“Oh my God; what did he—”

“I don’t know what he heard or didn’t hear, but he said he heard you mention my name.”

“Who all did he tell?” Anger appeared on his face, his fists clenching. “Ugh, that mouthy little weasel…”

“I don’t think he told anyone but me. But I don’t think you should stay in here. Too much stuff to break, if you’re gonna be acting out your nightmares. Not only that, but you could very well rip open your incision sites and bleed to death on the floor!”

“Wait—what about the lab?” Charles suggested, his eyes wide and frantic like a cornered wild animal. “It’s on the other side of the O.R. and is far enough away from Klinger to—”

“Yeah, _that’s_ a great idea,” Pierce retorted sarcastically, “you acting out in your sleep in a room full of dangerous drugs in glass bottles.”

Charles looked as if he were about to cry now, and he placed his hands on Pierce’s shoulders, his eyes frantic.

“What am I supposed to do?” he croaked in an uncharacteristically thin, high-pitched voice. “Tell me, please.” 

Hawkeye had to avert his eyes, still unaccustomed to raw Winchester emotion. What was he supposed to say, to do? Unlike his own past of receiving his fair share of bruises and not backing down from a fight, Winchester was soft and cossetted, wholly unprepared for the ramifications of such a violent, personal assault. This did not happen in high society Boston, in the hallways of Harvard Medical, in the operating rooms of Boston Mercy Hospital or Massachusetts General. This did not happen to men of his stature and influence, to boot. Charles simply didn’t have the mental fortitude to accept that what had happened to him was nothing to be ashamed about.

“Don’t panic, Charles,” he said, briefly making eye contact with Winchester. “We’ll think of something.”

“You told me yourself the man is dead. Come to think of it, there _was_ another man present, but I don’t believe he took part in the actual… Could that be why I am still having nightmares?”

“The memory of what happened, whether or not you can actually recall it, will take a good deal more time to die. Believe me, if memories could be surgically removed, I’d have gladly done so for you while you were on the operating table.”

“How do _you_ not have nightmares?” Charles murmured, his voice breaking. 

“Oh, I did, believe me,” Hawkeye admitted, wincing as he glanced briefly at the terror in Winchester’s eyes. “But one _good_ thing about Korea is I’m now thousands of miles away from them, in addition to being ten years away. It’ll get better over time; I promise.”

“I don’t _have_ time!” Charles exclaimed in an angry whisper, shaking Pierce’s shoulders. “And I certainly can’t get the hell away from here. I have to _live_ here, to _exist_ with these cretins in a place utterly devoid of privacy, a place where human dignity shrivels up and dies.”

“Just give me some time to think of—”

“What about barbiturates?” Charles said, removing his hands from Pierce’s shoulders and crossing his arms across his chest, placing a finger on his chin in thought. “Some kind of tranquilizer, perhaps? You could put me under every night, to prevent me from—”

“You gotta be kidding me. Do you know how dangerous that would be? How would _I_ be getting any sleep, having to keep track of your vitals every couple of minutes?”

“We could operate in shifts,” he said, a strange manic smile now on his face. “That’s it! You could sleep during the day. Or vice versa.”

“No, that’s not gonna work. Especially not when we're hit with casualties. I can just see it now, me frantically attempting to shake you out of your drug-induced stupor when those helicopters fly in, while having to convince everyone that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you.”

“What about diphenhydramine? Surely that would dope me up sufficiently without all the adverse effects of barbiturates. Not to mention, I would not be snoring again anytime soon.”

“I dunno—everything is in short supply around here. You’d have to pawn off every item of any value to attain the kind of supply needed to—”

“Done.”

Pierce blinked at Charles now, taken aback. There was not a hint of hesitancy in Winchester’s voice. The man actually seemed to be sold on the idea of purposely making himself destitute.

“What are you saying, that you’re willing to part with—”

“Anything and everything,” Winchester interrupted matter-of-factly. “In fact, I gather I could have my sister Honoria ship me some of my more… priceless possessions from Boston, to up the ante, as it were. Do you think I could get fair market value for my Rolex watches?”

“Watches, as in plural? Geez, I mean, if you’re gonna go so far as to unload your fancy watch collection, why don’t you have _her_ ship you the diphenhydramine?!”

Charles blinked rapidly for a moment, deeply considering the suggestion.

“Do you think she would?”

“No, you blockhead!” Hawkeye exclaimed, throwing up his arms, starting to pace back and forth in the small space. “It’s prescription only! Is your sleep worth having your sister sent to prison?”

“Of course not,” Winchester muttered, now frowning. His posture crumbled as he expelled all the air from his lungs. It was as if Pierce could visualize all hope leaving Winchester’s body.

“What does it matter if people find out what happened?” Pierce muttered. “I’m telling you; it wasn’t your fault. It could have happened to anybody.”

“But in fact it _was_ my fault, being as I sought vengeance on those men after they’d taken my wine and my winter suit. And no, it didn’t happen to just anybody; it happened to _me_.”

Pierce sighed sadly at Winchester’s reply. What could he possibly say? He’d been in the same boat so many years ago and had felt many of the same things. Yet somehow he’d gotten through it, day by day, week by week. Things were different here at the M.A.S.H. For one, Winchester was thousands of miles from his family and from his hometown friends. And he was correct in saying that privacy was not to be had here—privacy could have afforded him a good loud cry, and the freedom to sleep—or not to sleep—without anyone else being made aware of it.

“Let’s go back to the Swamp,” Pierce suggested. “You being in here isn’t gonna work.”


End file.
